Masculinity is Not the Problem
Much hay has been made in recent years about this thing we call toxic masculinity without a lot in terms of defining what makes some masculinity toxic but some not so.
Bill Maher does a New Rules on the idea and sounds just a bit whiney about it. He used Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and men taking up arms to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion as examples of how masculinity can be anything but toxic.
“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the crisis in Ukraine, it’s that everyone loves, and the world still needs, grown-ass men.”
Maher noticed that American women are obsessing over Zelenskyy, who the New York Post enshrined as a ‘sex symbol’ earlier last month. Maher's point? Progressives can’t consider Zelenskyy a sex symbol while also denouncing masculinity as intrinsically toxic.
“Could it be that as much as women may want to create the perfect man there’s always going to be a little bit of toxic mixed in with our masculinity and no amount of training will turn us into your favorite Twilight character."
With the whole questioning of whether The Slap was justified or over the top or ‘a black thing white people shouldn’t comment upon’ or a prime example of toxic masculinity, it seems that Maher has a point. I’m not a proponent of just walking up and smacking anyone without a physical provocation. As I wrote the other day, Will Smith was just a garden variety bully.
Being the new kid in school in perpetuity growing up, I had my fair share of bullies. I learned a lot of things being bullied consistently for seven years in a row.
I learned how to take a punch
This seems like a life skill that shouldn’t have to be learned but it is the same lesson as when I was a kid learning to play baseball. I was put in center field because I have almost no athletic ability and possess no grace at all. But I was afraid to catch pop flies. I didn’t want them to hit me in the face like an ordinary human.
The coach came over, threw a ball at me. It hit me in the mouth hard. I cried. He said “That was rough, kid. Probably hurt. But you’re still standing, yeah? You’re okay, right?” I was. “Now you know what it feels like. It’s better to catch the ball than let it hit you in the face but if it does, you’ll survive.” I caught more balls after that.
Anthony Jackson taught me to not fear being punched in the face.
I learned how to take an insult
When I hear people today cry out “Your beliefs are cancelling my existence” and “hate speech is violence” I can’t help but shrug. What I hear is people unable to handle ideas that are in conflict with their personal agenda.
The argument that words are the same as getting punched in the face could only be made by someone never once punched in the face.
In terms of the three generations following me (Three? What the hell?) the trend has been to continuously dress down any form of masculinity as if being a dude is simply a gateway drug to toxicity. Like we’re each of us with a penis just one moment from becoming Harvey Weinstein.
First, realize that you are not Harvey Weinstein. You’re not mega-wealthy. You’re not a Hollywood power broker. Even if you’re a heavy, older white guy with all the aggressive tendencies associated with that classification, unless you try to get women to have sex with you to get a job, you aren’t even in the same triathlon. Even if you’re just a regular white/black/brown guy (with all of the societally frowned upon traits that guys have had for centuries (I mean, the Patriarchy isn’t a sports bar or a metal band, right?), unless you’re a rapey kind of guy who sees women as objects to conquer with your skeevy charms the only thing you have in common with Harvey is a tendency for back hair and a dangly mushroom cap.
Second, understand that all of those folks complaining about your "manspreading" and "mansplaining" as if those things are hangable offenses rendering you the “Harvey Weinstein of the local Starbucks,” are nothing more than assholes trying to inflate their sense of offense to the same level as a woman forced to watch you jerk yourself off in a bathroom. Feminism has bigger fish to fry than you being an inconsiderate butthole on the bus. You know, like guys who force women to watch them spank their pud.
Third, stop with the virtue signaling already. If you aren’t a creep, most women in your life already know it. If you are, they know that, too. Your impassioned Faceborg posts about how outrageous it is that people who had little to nothing to do with Harvey except do some movies with him aren’t disavowing him publicly is just another way to gin up some more outrage for the Rage Profiteers. And the opinions of your exes are just so much butt-hurt gossip unless you stalked them or forced them to watch you pop your dongle.
Generally speaking, unless you forced or coerced a woman to do something she did not want to do, you aren't Harvey
But are you Will Smith? Was The Slap an example of the hyper-masculine into toxic overdrive?
Maybe.
In his memoir, Will, Smith starts things off with this:
"What you have come to understand as ‘Will Smith,’ the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction—a carefully crafted and honed character—designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward."
I’m thinking that toxic masculinity is blind to its existence.
I also know the difference between a slap and a punch (remember those bullies I mentioned? Not the slapping types). Smith didn’t go at him like the baby mamma to the girlfriend on The Jerry Springer Show, after all. He slapped him. A slap only hurts in the surprise and is generally intended as a rebuke rather than an act of destruction.
I've also witnessed far more women slap people than men.
As we are entering full-force into a time where self-identification is the New Rule, where simply declaring an identity makes it so (unless, of course, you are Rachel Dolezal), having some sort of concept of what a man is or strives to be is important.
According to Planned Parenthood, words commonly used to describe masculinity are:
independent
non-emotional
aggressive
tough-skinned
competitive
clumsy
experienced
strong
active
self-confident
hard
sexually aggressive
rebellious
Which is pretty much completely useless in trying to define the thing. Ten of those descriptors apply to me, seven apply to my wife.
Checking in with AskMen, we are told that a Real Man:
Can defend himself
Keeps his house in order
Takes care of his appearance
Makes his own fortune
Strives to be a role model
His word is his bond
Doesn't gossip
Is focused
Nice stuff but, again, missing the point.
Facts is facts, gang. As much as we want to mush up the lines, the lines still exist. Men and women are different in too many ways to make it all the same.
Just as unhelpful is the idea that we should all of us, with no regard to gender, follow a simple set of basic principles and then we could abandon gender as a label altogether. Which is silly. We will never be a genderless society and the fact is that we wouldn't want it to be. Human beings like to fuck too much and gender is a large part of what turns most of us on (with nods to the 0.04 percent of society who get turned on by Crayon Boxes and poop, knock yourselves out but this conversation isn't about you). Further, in the revolution to be televised, eliminating the concept of manhood is ridiculously naive and impossible to boot.
Why is it so important to define it? Can't we all just be people?
A lack of defining characteristics is not the problem. It is the characteristics being defined culturally that are confusing, blurry, and in conflict with very masculine instincts. We tend to forget in our human arrogance that we are, as the website says, "all just apes who learned to read." We're animals with big brains, no fur, armor, or claws.
I recall taking a woman I was dating to a restaurant to celebrate her birthday.
"What's your birthday wish?" I asked.
She pulled out of her oversized purse a book filled with pictures of babies. I mean, hundreds of babies. She handed it to me. "That's what I wish for. I have a biological clock and its chiming."
"That biological clock stuff is for the birds."
"No it's not! It's real. I can't help it. My body wants to reproduce. You wouldn't understand."
"Sure I would. Men have a biological imperative as well. We're hardwired to fuck and impregnate every viable female we can find. Nature demands it. I, however, don't run around mating with every woman I meet because, as a rational adult human, I understand that instinct and also understand it can be controlled to some degree. And probably should."
We dated for around six months but the baby lust continued until it was time to bolt.
Facts is facts, gang. As much as we want to mush up the lines, the lines still exist. Men and women are different in too many ways to make it all the same. Our animal instincts are different. Masculinity and femininity are different states of being. In the past, femininity has been defined by the males of the species which has put women in a pretty shitty place for a long time. Equally shortsighted is to allow masculinity to be defined by the non-masculine. That sort of process creates confusion and, in the case of a lot of younger guys, has fomented the whole Incel thing which is just troubled men trying to figure out how to get laid but filled with masculine rage when they can't quite figure it out.
Where are the lines between masculinity (nature's way), hyper-masculinity (the ego's way), and toxic masculinity (the villain's way)?
Masculinity encompasses the instincts and behaviors granted men through both nature and nurture. Having a penis and balls seems to be a consistent biological premise but there is more derived from a biological increase in testosterone, body mass, muscle mass, a certain density of bone. These are all physical characteristics that feed into the natural behavior of the male.
Masculinity is more competitive—for sex, for resources, for space—as it is also more protective of these things. Masculinity is less vulnerable as well as uses less emotion-based reasoning. Much of what we call masculine is socially constructed and presents itself as something to achieve rather than inborn through leadership skills, self control, discipline, a sense of honor, the earning of respect, and the achievement of status within society.
Hyper-masculinity is all of these qualities taken to a certain extreme. Overly competitive, overly protective, adherence to hierarchies rather than individual strengths and weaknesses, over compensation for flaws rather than healthy boundaries. The hyper-masculine is one of ego-driven comparison with all other males, the performative machismo, the insecure man striving to be Alpha.
Toxic masculinity, then, is the hyper-masculine taken to an even further extreme. So competitive that every situation is full-on combat. Jealousy. An inability to self-reflect and thus completely cut off all emotional reasoning save greed, lust, and anger. Not only a need to dominate any men in the group but to dominate every woman as well. Toxic masculinity is frequently petty, quick to offense, justifies negative behavior, wholly self interested and thus wholly selfish, using all the biological strengths of the male to enforce an aggressive and conquering result in all relationships.
In the past, I've ruminated on the question: What Makes a Man? The best I came up with was a list:
A man protects those in need of protection.
A man is not petty.
A man is a source of safety in an unsafe world.
A man makes mistakes, admits them, and learns from them.
A man is not selfish or filled primarily with self-interest.
A man picks her up at the airport without being asked to.
A man asks questions about others and follows up by LISTENING.
A man will fuck you but make sure you cum, too.
A man never throws the first punch and NEVER hits a woman.
A man holds open the door for everyone.
A man trains those younger than he to replace him.
A man treats every woman as he would have others treat his mother and treats everyone the way he would expect to be treated himself.
A man tips well.
A man is rarely offended by personal slights or insults.
A man takes responsibility for what he does and says.
Not a bad list as these things go, I suppose.
